Nearly 100 years ago, in 1911, the famous 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published. This massive work was, by some accounts, the last attempt to gather all of the world's knowledge together. With the then already rapidly accelerating pace of technology this sounds like it was an unrealistic goal, if indeed that was the publishers' idea. Nevertheless, the result became a definitive reference in many regards, and today it remains a fascinating, and sometimes even useful, document.

The Britannica's treatment of bagpipes is presented here. The five pages contain some accurate and some highly speculative (to be kind) information. They provide a snapshot of the scant state of knowledge about bagpipes at the time, especially non-Scottish bagpipes. We hope you enjoy this interesting bit of history.

Below are thumbnails of the three images (five pages) of the article. Click on them to bring up the corresponding pages in large JPG files (approximately 2.5MB).

The material itself is in the public domain, but these scans are Copyright 2008 by The Universe of Bagpipes and contain embedded information making them identifiable as our property. We herewith grant the right to reproduce them on paper for non-commercial personal use by individuals and bona fide educational organizations. All other uses, including the posting of any part of these scans on other web sites, requires specific permission from us.